Along with the launching of new services of the 3rd generation digital communications (3G) and the next generation network (NGN), there are great changes in the charging technology of these services, and for a charging system, it is an important issue to find solutions for rapidly supporting the expansion of new services.
Changes in charging services are mainly caused by the alternation of communication scenes. In traditional charging systems, a communication scene's matching logic is usually fixed in charging system's programs, and a new communication scene's matching logic cannot be supported flexibly. In traditional charging methods, according to some critical factors in communication records (e.g., the calling number, called number, and etc.), the communication features (e.g., whether being long-distance, whether being roaming, or/and whether to be forwarded) are determined. And, use such features to match the conditions of the communication scene that have been configured so as to determine the charging rate of a communication and calculate the fees at last. The logic for matching such critical charging factors is fixed in the programs of the charging system. So end users have to select some factors from the given critical factors, combine these selected factors, and match various communication scenes with the combinations of these selected factors to determine a charging rule.
The drawbacks of the traditional charging methods are as follows: usually, the matching logic of the critical factors for the charging of one service is different from that of the charging of another service. In traditional charging methods, the matching logic is fixed in the programs. To support new services' charging rule or charging method, the programs have to be modified, which increases the development costs and delays the introduction of new products. Moreover, the traditional charging methods cannot be extended flexibly, and the program has to be modified to meet even some minor demands of users, which will interrupt the online system, affect the normal operation of the system, and easily cause failures.